“Yes,” Emma said. Whatever defiance she’d felt at the edge of the flood had been overwhelmed as surely as the sandbag wall.
“They don’t need any permission,” Prince went on, “because they’ve got all they need.”
The big beast of an SUV plowed right through the flooded streets of southeast DC, one of the most violent neighborhoods in the U.S. They came to a warehouse district, where the flood had receded to less than six inches. Other than the water, the area was empty.
The driver gunned the engine, racing up a concrete ramp toward the loading dock behind a windowless brick building. There were five doors, each large enough to accommodate a Freightliner.
The driver clicked a remote on the sun visor. The door in the center rose so swiftly the Hummer never had to stop moving. As soon as they rolled into the darkness inside, the door closed behind them.
Then the driver hit another button on the remote, which switched on ceiling lights that illuminated rows of long wooden crates stacked three high.
“Now get out,” Prince said. “But if you try any hide-and-seek with us, we’ll make you wish you drowned back there.”
Emma believed him. She didn’t sense a single bit of bluff in his words or manner.
“On the other hand, do what you’re told and you might live,” he added with an unpleasant grin.
Emma and Tanesa piled out of the backseat.
“What’s all this stuff?” Tanesa asked, staring at the long narrow crates.
“You can’t tell by the shape? You’re too white for a black girl. Kids around here, they don’t need to look twice. Show them, Ship.”
The driver, his thick arms only a little tensed by the weight of the nearest crate, lowered it to the floor.
He unsnapped metal buckles that Emma hadn’t noticed till then and opened the top. A gleaming mahogany casket, corners padded with custom-fitted Styrofoam cushions, appeared.
“Someone I know well gave me the keys to this place,” Prince told them. “Maybe ’cause I’m so good for business, you hear? Open that up. Girl should see where she’s bedding down for the next day or two.”
“What!” Tanesa exclaimed. “Don’t do that to me. I’m scared to death of tight spaces. That’s my nightmare.”
Emma put her arm around Tanesa’s back. “Hold on,” she whispered.
“That’s cute,” Prince bellowed. “White girl getting close with her black girlfriend. Makes me all warm inside. Maybe we should squeeze them both inside that thing. Yeah, that’s what we should do.”
“No!” Tanesa screamed.
Prince strolled over to them. He pushed Emma aside and glared at Tanesa. “You look at me, girl. You’re going to get your black ass in that coffin or I’m going to cut your heart out and put you in there for good.”
Just that fast he pulled out a switchblade and clicked it open.
“Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, help me,” Tanesa said, as Prince shoved her into the casket.
While the others laughed, Emma looked around. She thought if it had been a movie she would have seen something to save them, but she saw nothing but stacks and stacks of crates. A lot of coffins. It sickened her to know that sooner or later they’d all be filled from the flooding. And other kinds of death.
She looked back at Tanesa, who had curled into a fetal position. Prince was leaning over her. “Get on your back and put your hands across your pretty chest,” he snapped at her. “And keep your big browns open.”
Tanesa, tears streaming down her cheeks, obeyed.
“Get another one over here for ivory,” Prince ordered. “Line it up, and get our cameraman,” he told one of the soldiers. “We need the video.”
Emma lay down in a matching coffin, wondering if they’d actually close them up and how long they’d keep them locked inside.
Prince ordered the cameraman, a short skinny man with big glasses, to take video of them lying side by side. He raised his camera and went to work.
Nobody spoke until Prince walked over and stared at Tanesa. “We’ll bury you alive,” he told her. “I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it to you. That’s why they call me ‘The Undertaker.’ You’ll be in there all by yourself, six feet under, and there’ll be no chance in hell anyone will ever hear you.”
Prince slowly lowered the lid on Tanesa’s unearthly screams and her hopeless attempt to keep him from closing the coffin. Locking it muffled her anguish so effectively it might not have been heard five feet away.
Then he closed Emma’s casket. She was terrified, too, but mostly that they’d load her onto a vehicle because that could mean burial. She couldn’t bear to let herself even think about that. Instead, she prayed as best she could, which she realized might never be good enough.
And she hoped — oh, God how she hoped — that she wouldn’t run out of air because they might not have thought of that.
Oleg and Galina were fighting furiously, rolling across the trawler’s deck. Early in their struggle, she had kicked him hard enough to break his stranglehold and back him into a bulkhead-mounted grappling hook. When he’d reached down, as if to grab the knife-wielding hand of an attacker, she’d twisted her head away, squirming and punching. Gasping for air, she’d fought madly to get away from him.
He swung wildly at her now, striking her mouth and drawing blood from her lips. She stumbled backward, looking for any help she could find on the deck. Her fear of dying at his hands was great, but nothing compared to her dread for Alexandra once she was gone.
As he moved toward her, she remembered he’d slipped his gun into the back of his pants, cocky enough — or so vengeful — that he wanted to make her murder as personal as possible. But when she tried to circle around him to reach for his weapon, he seized her hand.
“I know you want the gun, and you’ll get it.”
Galina tried to pull away, but his other hand latched on. Before she could fight back, he forced her onto her knees, his hands like steel clamps around her neck once more.
“Stupid girl. You could have had the whole world with me.”
Galina tried to speak, a futile effort with him draining the last of her air. But he must have wanted to hear her because he eased up just enough for her to cough and say, “I had nothing with you but lies. Better dead than with you.”
He pressed his thumbs back into her neck and snapped her head around. “I will strangle your cancer kid next. I promise.”
His eyes bulged with anger, and his hands squeezed harder. She couldn’t break his grip. She looked around frantically once more. Anything.
There.
The cop was frantically trying to work his hands free from the bench where he’d been tied up. All she had was hope, spurred by his offer of help only minutes ago.
Get his gun, she thought at the cop. The gun.
Galina fought for every extra second of life now, pounding Oleg’s hands, but to no avail. She began to black out. The cop had loosened the rope, but was still entangled in it.
Galina threw a desperate punch, trying to pound Oleg’s scrotum. She missed, but alarm filled his face, and she guessed she must have come close. She tried again. He caught her fist this time.
He was still choking her, but with only one hand. She was grabbing half breaths, telling herself she just needed a few seconds more.
His gun. Grab it. Staring at the cop again, hoping he really was on her side. Black splotches appeared before her eyes. The cop rose to his feet.
The gun, she pleaded silently one last time.
But the cop would never get it because Oleg reached back right then and grabbed his nine millimeter. He shoved the barrel into Galina’s mouth.